Percorso:ANSA > Nuova Europa > Analysis > Climate change:COP24, signs of compromise, peaks and througs
Climate change:COP24, signs of compromise, peaks and througs
Greenpeace disappointed,'no real commitment'. Criticism from WWF
20 December, 18:16
(ANSA) - BELGRADE, DEC. 19 - Never-ending discussions which
lasted far beyond the two weeks originally envisaged.
Controversy, protests, attempts to finally reach a compromise last-minute agreement, which left a very bitter taste in the mouth, especially for environmentalists. The final report of the COP24 UN climate change talks, held in Katowice (Poland), has peaks and throughs.
The almost 200 countries that signed the 2015 Paris climate agreement in 2015 reached a new deal, but less ambitious than expected, not fully incorporating the warnings from the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.
Opening the COP24 summit, Guterres underlined that climate is ''a matter of life and death''. On the same wavelength is the group of intergovernmental experts from the UN on the climate (IPCC), who, in the report issued in October, had pointed out the increasing urgency to keep the average global temperature rise below 1.5 Celsius degrees.
Some progress in Katowice, however, was made. Among the agreements, the one that foresees common rules to guarantee more control and transparency on the progress of global action against global warming, but also the 'deadline' of 2020 to present more rigorous national plans against climate change. The regulation signed in Katowice also makes the Paris agreement operational, with the goal to keep the average global temperature rise below 2 degrees (better 1,5) by the end of the century. The wealthiest countries have promised to increase funding so as to give more support to the poorest, worried about not being able to cope with the threats of climate change. It was decided that the COP25 will be held in Chile in 2019, with a 'pre-COP' in Costa Rica.
Secretary Guterres said at the end of the summit that ''the approval of the work programme on the Paris agreement is a good basis for a transformation plan that will require the international community to have a higher ambition and from now on, my five priorities will be: ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition and ambition '', with reference to the issues of mitigation, funding, cooperation, capacity building and technological innovation. Many entities face disappontment over Katowice, among them Greenpeace.
''Even though the IPCC issued a stark warning only two months ago, declaring that we have just 12 years to save the planet from climate change catastrophe, the COP24 ended without a clear commitment to improving the actions to be taken against climate change '', Greenpeace said. ''Despite the expectations, no clear collective commitmnt has been made in ordert to improve the climate action goals, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC)'', Greenpeace added. Just a little less harsh was the verdict of the WWF, who welcomed ''the steps forward taken towards the adoption of a 'Rule Book' to make the Paris agreement operational and also the signs of willingness to increase the ambitions that came from the UN Conference, but we have not yet reached the acceleration in the action which is needed to deal with the climate change issue''. According to the WWF, moreover, in Poland there was ''little clarity on how we will reach the 100 billion target by 2020 or how the global financial goal will be agreed after 2025'' and a ''fundamental lack of understanding, in some countries, of the climate crisis we are facing with''. According to Legambiente, ''there was no clear and strong response from governments to the climate change crisis, highlighted by the recent IPCC report''. This stance is consistent with Climate Action Network (CAN), entity gathering over 1,300 NGOs in 120 countries. CAN has pointed an accusing finger at the US and Saudi Arabia, 'guilty' of taking the climate issue lightly. But also against governments in wider terms, who ''did not respond with a strong political will to tackle the climate crisis''. And this commitment is exactly what experts and scientists so often called for. (ANSA).
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Controversy, protests, attempts to finally reach a compromise last-minute agreement, which left a very bitter taste in the mouth, especially for environmentalists. The final report of the COP24 UN climate change talks, held in Katowice (Poland), has peaks and throughs.
The almost 200 countries that signed the 2015 Paris climate agreement in 2015 reached a new deal, but less ambitious than expected, not fully incorporating the warnings from the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.
Opening the COP24 summit, Guterres underlined that climate is ''a matter of life and death''. On the same wavelength is the group of intergovernmental experts from the UN on the climate (IPCC), who, in the report issued in October, had pointed out the increasing urgency to keep the average global temperature rise below 1.5 Celsius degrees.
Some progress in Katowice, however, was made. Among the agreements, the one that foresees common rules to guarantee more control and transparency on the progress of global action against global warming, but also the 'deadline' of 2020 to present more rigorous national plans against climate change. The regulation signed in Katowice also makes the Paris agreement operational, with the goal to keep the average global temperature rise below 2 degrees (better 1,5) by the end of the century. The wealthiest countries have promised to increase funding so as to give more support to the poorest, worried about not being able to cope with the threats of climate change. It was decided that the COP25 will be held in Chile in 2019, with a 'pre-COP' in Costa Rica.
Secretary Guterres said at the end of the summit that ''the approval of the work programme on the Paris agreement is a good basis for a transformation plan that will require the international community to have a higher ambition and from now on, my five priorities will be: ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition and ambition '', with reference to the issues of mitigation, funding, cooperation, capacity building and technological innovation. Many entities face disappontment over Katowice, among them Greenpeace.
''Even though the IPCC issued a stark warning only two months ago, declaring that we have just 12 years to save the planet from climate change catastrophe, the COP24 ended without a clear commitment to improving the actions to be taken against climate change '', Greenpeace said. ''Despite the expectations, no clear collective commitmnt has been made in ordert to improve the climate action goals, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC)'', Greenpeace added. Just a little less harsh was the verdict of the WWF, who welcomed ''the steps forward taken towards the adoption of a 'Rule Book' to make the Paris agreement operational and also the signs of willingness to increase the ambitions that came from the UN Conference, but we have not yet reached the acceleration in the action which is needed to deal with the climate change issue''. According to the WWF, moreover, in Poland there was ''little clarity on how we will reach the 100 billion target by 2020 or how the global financial goal will be agreed after 2025'' and a ''fundamental lack of understanding, in some countries, of the climate crisis we are facing with''. According to Legambiente, ''there was no clear and strong response from governments to the climate change crisis, highlighted by the recent IPCC report''. This stance is consistent with Climate Action Network (CAN), entity gathering over 1,300 NGOs in 120 countries. CAN has pointed an accusing finger at the US and Saudi Arabia, 'guilty' of taking the climate issue lightly. But also against governments in wider terms, who ''did not respond with a strong political will to tackle the climate crisis''. And this commitment is exactly what experts and scientists so often called for. (ANSA).
